here comes my baby, my most treasured strat on reefa, and everyone (besides fresh and chain, who seem to have no problem beating it) hates me for it. it will typically lose to a corvswarm that also builds alot of salvs and miners. some good swarmers may do too much damage before your grav for you to keep up the expensive salv/grav build. it works marvels against any frigbased strategy though
SAVAGEFL’s GRAVSALV
trickytrickytricky, thats what this strat is, but even if you will lose over half your games with it, the payoff is great : there is NO STRAT in homeworld that can be as funny/irritating as a nicely executed gravsalv.
4 research, 6/2 colls.
research: capdrive/corvdrive/corvchassis/gravs/capitals/miners for extra fun
6/2 colls, four research cost alot, so we are gonna NOT build supports until you startbuilding salvs.
so when you get capdrive, only get the two controllers for now.
corvchassis done, queue up 25 salvs, and start building7 support. KEEP SALVS DOCKED.
gravresearch done, queue up eight.
once capchassis is done u can follow it up with ions or go straight MD or even ions+ miners which can be alot of fun.
NOW once they see you re gonna get four research they will think that you are
A: a newb.
B: drunk.
C:going grav, which is basicly the same thing as the two above .
they will be at your door quick and you can count on a bomberswarm or at least inters+lightschangeup.
Well, you will just have to hang in there a bit, you will only have your scouts and typically one support out before they rush you.Heck you might even lose up to three colls, but dont worry just yet, your time will come (last game vs farbeyond i lost three early colls and won it with surprising ease).
the first grav is key. if the first grav is allowed to die before the second grav comes out you can scuttle your MS.
shield the grav with your mothership so that any incoming kamikaze colls have to travel around it, buying you precious seconds to…to…to…
launch the six salvs that you have built and docked at this point
immediately salv any incoming kamikaze colls, one two, some players even send three, but you have six salvs so you are safe. if they send ALL THEIR FOUR COLLS, some subtilty is required. you cant hold them all four at once, but you can stop the first one, move the grav away a bit, stop the next two, then release the first one , and use the now free two salvs to stop the fourth one. keep repeating this until the next pait of salvs is built, and at this exact moment your second grav should come out, making it easier on you to stop him from recourcing.
well what else does he have to kill something of you? not his strike craft, cuzz its gravved, maybe one assault? three if he was going purecaps? you should have four support out by now, fifth building, so you can outsupport any firepower easily
just make sure that after he realizes that you have too many gravs to kill with his colls (maybe steal one or two just to make up for the ones you lost to his swarm) that you steal anything that has firepower.
_Gravpositioning is key.
_supporting skills are also key : dont always feel necessary to put all your support frigs on one pair of salvs; divide them after you calculate what you can heal and how much damage he can deal. one ion>one support>one assault is the rule here.
needless t say that the smallest fuckup will result into irrevocable and humiliating defeat.
BUT even if you DO play it perfectly theres two BUGSin the game that can seriously spoil your fun :
_the worst is the ‘salvs on strike’ factor. its a byug, the salvs latch on, but just sit there then without carrying the ship to your MS. It seems to happen more often when the salvs are in the grav influence, though i do not know why. Try moving the grav so that his strike craft is still trapped, and that it blocks the path of any incoming kamisalv strikecraft, but so that the salvs themselves are out of grav range; it sometimes works, but not always.
_second worst, is very disabilitating, but not necessarily a game killer. Sometimes if you are holding a number of ships waiting to be processed at your MS, you will notice that you CANT BUILD ANY FRIGS YOURSELF. sure they are built in the buildmanager, but they do not actually come out. this is only temporarily, as soon as you have processed all ships or cancelled all the salv orders, your fleet starts to pop out.
can cost you the game, but sometimes its funny.
<zekelekyCAT> : muahahaha you stole alot, but now i have you.i killed all your frigs when you were busy suppporting the salvs.
<nOObLS> : …
*nOOb cancels salv orders
*nOOb 's MS spits out TEN frigs in ten seconds
*nOOb ’ salvs latch back on
<nOObLS> :